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Saturday, August 30, 2014

Back in July, I got inspired to create what I call, “DC
Cherry Cupcakes.” It’s a white almond cake topped with a fresh cherry almond
puree and cherry almond butter cream. I took my regular butter cream and used fresh
cherry juice as the liquid and used almond and vanilla extract. The result was
a delicate rose butter cream, very similar to the color of cherry blossoms. I
used a star tip to create a rose design on top. This is actually ridiculously
easy. If you’d like to try it yourself, start with a large star tip (4 or 5).
Fill your pastry bag (or Ziploc, no judgments here) with your favorite
frosting, slightly stiff. Hold your bag perpendicular to the cupcake, and start
in the center. Squeeze out the frosting in a circular motion until you get to
the edge. Voila! That’s it. I kid you not, it’s that easy.

My friends and
family have willingly become my guinea pigs (ironic, since I’m allergic to
actual guinea pigs). They loved these cupcakes! I was making a test batch, so
I did a few cupcakes without the cherry puree. I marked the ones with the puree by drawing
with melted chocolate on top. My friend Laura, who’s not crazy about cherries,
loved the cherry almond butter cream. Hell, I loved it so much; I spread it on
graham crackers! My mom liked them, but said, “Not enough chocolate” (I wonder
where I get my chocoholism from?).I
agreed that they would be good with more chocolate. I decided I would try
chocolate shavings in the butter cream next time.

Flash forward
to August and my mom’s birthday rolls around. She claimed I didn’t have to bake
her anything. “I don’t need a cake!” she said, but I knew the truth. I decide
to create, “Mom’s Cherry Covered Chocolate Cupcakes.” I started with our basic
chocolate cake recipe. I replaced the unsweetened cocoa powder with Hershey’s
Special Dark cocoa powder

and I subbed out 1 ½ teaspoons
of the vanilla extract for almond extract. The cake batter, holy balls the cake
batter, it was heavenly!

I made cherry puree by pitting about 2 cups fresh
cherries, throwing them in a food processor and draining through a sieve. I
saved the cherry juice for my butter cream. I added 1 teaspoon of sugar and a healthy splash of Disarrono amaretto. I stored
this in the fridge while the cupcakes cooled and went to work on the pièce d’ résistance;
cherry almond butter cream with dark chocolate shavings. I wanted the chocolate
and cherry to stand as separate notes, that’s why I chose the chocolate
shavings instead of cocoa powder or chocolate extract. I also added a little
amaretto, because why the hell not? I topped my cooled cupcakes with the fresh
cherry puree.

Next, I intended to decorate
the cupcakes like the DC Cherry cupcakes, with the star tips roses.What I utterly failed to consider, and some
of you smarties out there might have guessed, especially if you’ve ever had a
chocolate chip Blizzard, is that the chocolate shavings would clog my star tip. Not knowing this, I loaded my bag with a #5 star tip and delicious frosting.
I’ll admit, at this point, I had sampled some of the amaretto (for quality
purposes, of course, I HAD to). Imagine my surprise when the first rose turned
out like utter crap! I was flummoxed for all of two seconds, and then I remembered
my own extensive Blizzard experience and the chocolate clogging the straw.Normally, you could just scrape off the
frosting and try again, but the puree was already on these cupcakes. I wish I
had taken a picture of how effed up these cupcakes were, but my first instinct
was to fix it, not photograph it. I did, rather pointlessly, try another large
tip before just cutting the end off the bag and doing a basic swirl. I blame
the Friday night dumbs and the amaretto for not skipping that middle step. Then
arrived problem number two: The delicate chocolate shavings that were solid
enough to clog my tips were also melting in the bag from the heat of my hands. This
turned my delicate rose frosting with dark flecks to a dusty pink frosting with
some brown streaks.

I stared at my crappy-looking
cupcakes in slight despair. These were not the cupcakes I wanted to present to
my mother. It was time to bite the bullet, or cupcake. I said a quick prayer
that they didn’t taste as bad as they looked. I got out a plate and a cup of
milk to go with my cupcake (professional
tip- just saying’). OH MY F#@*ing CRAP,
these were the ultimate ugly duckling cupcakes! The flavors did just what they
should; explode on your tongue, do a little dance and party in your mouth.
This, IMHO, is an awesome cupcake. I do
recommend storing them in the refrigerator. To quote my mom, the birthday girl,
they are “Divine.” My friend Jen texted me, “Hoooolyyyy crap!!!!” and “So good.
Possibly even better that is was cold. It was still gooey and delicious”

*Sadly, my mom went to sneak
the last cupcake when everyone else in her house was asleep (so she didn’t have
to share) only to discover that ants had invaded her container and were eating
her cupcake. She did not heed my fridge suggestion. *

Now on to learning from my
delicious failure: the next time I make these I will simply do a big only swirl
design. These darlings don’t need fancy looking frosting. I should probably
chill the frosting in the bag for a few minutes to avoid the chocolate melting.
For your viewing displeasure, here are a few of my bad pics.

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more baking adventures, tips, triumphs and mishaps. ~Megan